RPNGC needs new direction
THE announcement to revamp the Royal PNG Constabulary (RPNGC) by Police Commissioner Gari Baki and Minister for Internal Security must be commended in view of the deteriorating law and order.
Some of the measures include boosting the number of police personnel, improving the welfare and retirement benefits, and the force’s image.
Like any other State departments and agencies, social benefits and living conditions of employees are in dire need of improvement and the RPNGC is no different.
I was told that the Kaugere and Mourata settlements in Port Moresby were once police barracks which have been converted into havens for settlers.
Many police barracks in PNG will share the same fate unless a proper retirement scheme is in place.
The initiative of Gari Baki must be commended to rid police barracks which are becoming havens for third and fourth generations of police progeny.
In addition, the Minister for Internal Security has revealed his own vision to bolster the manpower of the police force.
He is optimistic that by 2012, the number of police personnel would increase to around 10,000, more than triple the size of the current force.
The minister points out the present ratio of 1, 600 people per police is woefully insufficient to maintain public order.
The minister may have his own reasons to triple the number of the force.
However, such enthusiasm will likely be checked by reality. There may be other alternatives the minister may want to consider.
The government, through the Minister for Foreign Affairs, has initiated a review of the controversial “Enhance Co-operation Programme” (ECP).
The programme was terminated abruptly over the issue of immunity for Australian police personnel that saw certain breaches of the Constitution.
The new arrangement called Halvim Gavman may contain plans to bolster the professional capacity of the RPNGC and with serious reconsideration for the immunity issue.
With Governor Luther Wenge, renowned for constitutional advocate, now in government, any emergence of constitutional crimes may pass undetected and succumb to lopsided government policies.
It is up to the citizen to raise issues that may be regarded as a breach to the Constitution.
For now, many of us are still ignorant as to the implication of the renamed co-operation between the two governments.
While aid money is needed, the PNG Government should not be cajoled into the ruse of Australians finding employment for its own people.
Ultimately in such co-operations, the real beneficiaries are Australians, while we have to be content with the leftovers.
Perhaps we should go further than aid money and the issue of police professional assistance.
Can our police be able to ameliorate the deteriorating law and order situation with the initiatives mentioned above, even despite their shortcomings?
Will police welfare and better living conditions make our police more professional?
Will the increase in numbers ameliorate the law and order conundrum?
Increasing police personnel by 75% in four years may just be another political parlance.
It is ludicrous considering the financial implications by such quantum conscription.
Thus, what the police force now need is not a mounting capacity for manpower but a significant bolster in quality and efficiency.
The bottom line in any programme to aid the constabulary has to do with mobility, dexterity, discipline and commitment.
Ultimately, it means using the available resources for maximum outcome.
For that to take place, the force needs to be trimmed in all aspects.
Indeed, the way forward is often demonstrated by the Deputy Commissioner Geoffrey Vaki.
He understands that personal discipline and commitment demanded of each cop is paramount to a new police outfit.
He consistently hammers home this point in police parades and in his visits to any police outpost.
Recently, he was critical of policemen with potbellies, verbally reprimanding policemen and women of chewing betelnut at workplace and negligence toward proper personal attire.
He is correct in demanding that from people in a disciplined force, and if members are not disciplined in the very small things, it will reflect in much bigger things.
People in our cities and towns do not only fear criminals, but also the police.
Time and again our constabulary had been accused of breaching human rights laws, and such perpetrations have cost the State millions of kina.
The K9 million recently paid to a tribe in Simbu is one of such case.
A proper disciplined force would respect the law.
This is an area where the RPNGC needs to redeem its image. People must perceive the police as a friend and not an enemy.
In return, police are there to protect citizens and not to abuse them.
We need many top brasses in the likes of Mr Vaki to instil maul discipline into the force.
A few disciplined and efficient constabularies are preferred over a multitude of ill-disciplined ones.
The same goes with the directive to stop “escort jobs” by the new commander, Thomas Eluh, in Western Highland.
He said it was not proper for police to provide private escorts for politicians, business people, companies and individuals.
He told them bluntly that they were not on their payroll but on the State’s payroll and their duty is to protect the public and their property.
If police are selective in their duties, they would be more inclined to help people with money than those that do not.
This is where the question of professional ethics enters the scene.
There are other minor breaches of conduct such as seeking fuel for police vehicles, unnecessary police roadblocks to collect fee that are unaccounted for, etc.
However, there is no denying there are many others who are committed and professional.
A report sometime ago revealed a police arresting someone who offered him a bribe.
Some cops have gone after hardcore criminals, risking their own lives in line of duty. They should be commended.
To assist in any future police plan, I see two directions to embark upon.
First, the RPNGC needs to relocate urgently several special elite squads in strategic positions. They should be highly paid, trained and disciplined in a paramilitary fashion to deal with civil unrest.
As a swift response group, they must quell any group violence, especially gun violence in the Highlands and other serious internal security threats.
They should be resourced heavily and could build on the capacity of the current mobile squad.
Second, the issue of community policing must be given top priority.
Police must be seen to go out and assist village court official in their duties as recommended by Highlands police commander, Simon Kaupa.
In this manner, the responsibility of law and order should be given to LLGs, especially ward development committees.
The need to have ward constables must be given special consideration.
Instead of having reservist police, ward constables should be propagated with regular police assisting them.
Police resources should be geared to aiding those ward constables, which could be regarded as a community volunteer service.
If this is done, the police commissioner will not have to worry about the future retirement benefits of 10,000 constabularies.
 
The end of banks?
By XAVIER VIVES
ARE banks doom as a result of the financial crisis?
The securitisation of mortgages originally was seen as a triumph, because it shifted risk to financial markets, while taking deposits and making and monitoring loans – the purview of traditional banks – was regarded as narrow and old-fashioned.
By contrast, modern banks would seek finance mainly in the interbank market and securitise their loan portfolios.
In theory, such banks should be immune to runs, because the interbank market is supposed to be extremely efficient, and risk would be shifted to investors willing to bear it.
Deposits would be replaced by mutual funds, which, as we know, are also immune to runs, and the risk of structured investment vehicles (SIVs) would be assessed accurately by rating agencies.
All this financial engineering would avoid the obsolete capital requirements that burden banks’ operation. The current crisis killed off this optimistic scenario. The interbank market has almost collapsed, because banks do not trust each other in the same way that we tend not to trust an eager seller of a second-hand car.
This is a textbook market failure.
The origin of the problem is uncertainty about banks’ exposure to sub-prime mortgages, the risks of which have been carelessly assessed by rating agencies due to conflicts of interest.
Britain’s Northern Rock has been a victim of this modern banking strategy, as has Bear Stearns in the United States. Others may follow soon.
Moreover, institutions that thought they had transferred risk to the market realised that the demise of sponsored SIVs would damage their reputations irreversibly.
This implied that they had to rescue these SIVs. Alas, they failed to set aside enough capital for this unforeseen contingency, and external investors such as the sovereign wealth funds of China, Singapore, and the Middle East have had to come to the rescue.
Finally, mutual funds are at risk as well, because their supposedly safe investments may sour and the insurance that backs them now appears shaky.
The sub-prime contamination of money market funds would prove disastrous, with consequences far beyond what we have seen up to now. The supposed transfer of risk would turn out to have been a mirage.
Are banks, markets, or regulators to blame? The answer may indicate what future awaits banks.
Some regulators were irresponsible for not anticipating the rational profit-maximising behaviour of institutions with a limited liability charter and of executives effectively protected from failure.
After all, what should banks do when, instead of keeping sub-prime mortgages on their books, monitoring their performance, and incurring capital requirements, they can securitise them advantageously (because the rating agencies have a stake in the business), avoid capital requirements, and profit from investors’ inexperience with such products.
Indeed, even if things turned ugly and banks’ equity suffered, executives knew that their own generous bonuses and pension packages most likely would not.
Given this, regulators should have thought twice before permitting off-balance sheet operations without any further provision.
The fundamental question today is who monitors opaque loans, whether of the sub-prime or any other variety. Traditionally, the answer was banks; in the securitised world, it remains a question.
So, is there an alternative to the old-fashioned monitoring of loans by banks?
Perhaps if those securitised packages had been properly rated, the originating institution would be obliged to retain a share to signal to the market that risk was being controlled.
And, clearly, the idea that capital requirements were not needed for banks’ off-balance sheet activities (because the banks were not bearing the risk), was simply wrong.
Appropriate regulation – including regulation of rating agencies – would most likely make traditional banks popular again.
A reconsideration of banks’ limited liability charter would go even further in restoring credibility.
The principle is simple: when your own money is at stake, you tend to be careful. But when you can play with others’ money and expect a reward for success and no punishment for failure, the incentives for irresponsible risk-taking become enormous. – Project Syndicate

Note: The author is Professor of Economics and Finance at Barcelona’s IESE Business School in Spain.
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